


Gun In Your Glove Compartment

by daynight



Series: Telegraph Avenue [4]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bar/Pub, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-22
Updated: 2015-02-22
Packaged: 2018-03-14 15:32:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3415982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daynight/pseuds/daynight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Battalion has a new night manager.</p><p> Carwood Lipton isn't sure whether this guy is flirting with him or just very, very intense. Maybe both?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gun In Your Glove Compartment

**Author's Note:**

> Not based on real men, no offence intended - inspired by TV depictions.

The alarm rang, shrill and penetrating. Not unlike very other morning, Lipton immediately sprang up from his bed, stepping out of his covers and allowing himself a small yawn. Weary, he shook out his sheets and made his bed, regimental. He took a short, hot shower then ate toast with a cup of orange juice, flicking through his newspaper. Slinging on his blue button up and trousers, making sure his appearance was suitably tidy; he clambered onto his bike and made his way to work. He checked his watch.  Five minutes ahead of time like every other morning. Lipton was a man of routine. 

Chaining up his bike and unlocking The Battalion, he remembered that this morning was not going to be exactly like every other morning. For one, his boss, the owner of The Battalion, was coming to visit. This was not entirely unusual as he usually came up about once a month, a very conscientious man who kept an eye on all of his employees and ventures, a gesture much appreciated by Lipton. The unusual thing was that Winters, the boss, had organized a large staff wide meeting to take place that day to integrate the new night bar manager into the fold.

It wasn’t that Lipton wasn’t pleased that they were getting a new night manager. As the day manager, he cared a lot about the welfare of his staff and the last one had been an unmitigated disaster. Dike, some bigwig from the city, could talk the talk very convincingly but had really fallen short in terms of management. He often didn’t even come in to work, leaving poor Roe, the head barman, struggling to look after the bar by himself. Lipton even found himself pulling night shifts as well as his normal day ones to help out, which left him with about 4 hours of sleep at night. Finding out that Dike had been taking his pocket money straight out of the tills was the last straw and Winters had finally booted him. Lipton liked to think that his strong words about the man had helped sway this decision.

Perhaps Lipton just felt that meeting the rest of the staff was an unnecessary distraction from the work at hand. The bar had been badly organized in the wake of Dike’s departure, and lots of paperwork needed to be done. However, the staff seemed kind of excited about it (the meetings usually constituted of a free meal and drinks, courtesy of Winters) and they’d all been working especially hard in the past few weeks. Slightly smiling to himself as he set himself up in the office, he thought about the last staff party that had happened for Smokey’s birthday. That had gotten a bit out of hand. Hopefully with Winters there, the guys could manage to control themselves.

* * *

 

Winters arrived at about 11 to find The Battalion open and cleaned to perfection. Lipton was one hell of a manager; he always managed to impress him on every visit. He was greeted warmly by Lipton and made the rounds with all his staff, all of whom seemed pleased and happy to see him. It made a change from when Dike was working, they were far more alive and less strung out and grumpy. A great improvement.

He sat down at one of the tables in the bar to review his papers before the meeting in early afternoon, letting Lipton work in the cramped office despite his offer to loan it. 

About an hour in, Harry Welsh burst through the door, holding two coffee cups and radiating good humour.

“Dick!”

“Harry, nice to see you! How have you been?” Winters usually made a point of linking up with Harry every time he was back down in Berkeley.

“Great! Good to see you here, just like old times, right?” He laughed and Winters echoed him, his tones a slight hollower.

“Sort of.” There were a couple very important things missing, but Winters did not like to dwell on them. He wasn’t the sort to sit around and brew his mistakes in his mind.

Harry sat down at the table with him, strewn with notes and papers for the meeting. He handed him the coffee he had been holding, peering over everything.

“Americano bit of milk, no sugar. How you like it, right?”

“Do you know how everyone likes their coffee, Welsh?” Winters accepted the coffee and took a sip. Perfect.

“Sure I do. Hang on.” He pointed at Roe. “Black, two sugars. He’s a serious type but has a sweet tooth.”

Winters chuckled softly.

“That’s an impressive skill.” Harry was leaning back, elbows on the table behind him.

“Thanks. So what’re you doing?” Winters sighed deeply, leaving through his notes.

“Trying to properly establish the hierarchy system for this business before our meeting.”

“How is that difficult, it’s not like you have hundreds of staff here, unlike your other branches.” Winters furrowed his brow, twiddling his pencil between his fingers.

“I know, but this one is the oldest and much more muddled. See here – “

He pointed at a crudely drawn hierarchy tree on the piece of paper.

“I’m the owner, and under me are the night manager, who works 7-3 in the morning, and the day manager who works 9-7. That’s Carwood, and the newly appointed Spiers.”

“That guy scares me.” Piped up Harry.

“You know him?” A foolish question, Harry knew everyone, even people like Speirs who had only been in town for about 2 weeks.

“He’s come in a couple times. Only drinks espresso shots.”

“Well good, we need him to keep the customers in line. Nights can get rowdy, remember?” Harry smiled now, reminiscing their earlier days, when Winters was just a barman and Harry a student.

“I think I was the cause of most of that rowdiness, to be honest.” Harry Welsh was well known at the time for being one of the heaviest drinkers in Berkeley and Winters could recall throwing him personally out of the bar on more than a few occasions. Him and…well. Winters would rather not think about that and thankfully Harry didn’t appear to be pushing the subject, at least not this time.

“Good thing Kitty keeps you on a short leash.”

“Good thing indeed.” Harry took a long sip of his coffee, nodding his head in agreement. His wild nights had definitely been curtailed but he did still like to drop into The Battalion every now and again, sometimes to just catch up with it’s staff, who all knew and liked him well.

“Anyway, it’s me, then Lipton and Spiers, then Roe, who works on both nights and mornings, whenever he can and we don’t tell him to go get some rest, really. Although Roe is below us, he can sometimes go above because when he’s angry he can be very authoritative.” Winters drew an arrow from Roe’s place on the tree to a point above his own name. He wasn’t joking, Roe was one of his longest standing staff members and Winters trusted his judgment completely, even when it differed from his own.

“He also comes with a new permanent feature, have you noticed?” Harry pointed at the bar, where Roe was working on organizing the bottles, wearing his normal concerned expression. He wasn’t as isolated as usual, however, now joined by a cute redheaded guy, hanging all over the bar and talking excitedly, stars in his eyes.

“We should start charging that kid admission. Make some money out of it.”

Harry shrugged. “He’d probably pay.” Winters snorted then went back to his notes.

“Okay, so at the same level as Roe is Joe Toye, our head chef. He only works during the day. Then under him is Smokey Gordon, the assistant chef.” He drew a line under them. “Then under everyone is our wait staff, who rotate through day and night. Faye, Grant, Hashey, Garcia and Christenson. They’re mostly students.” Winters drew another line coming down from Spiers. “There’s also the bouncers, Bull Randleman and Johnny Martin. They only work at night. Great guys, ex military.”

Harry peered down at the tree. “I think that’s everyone, Dick. See, that wasn’t so hard. Where am I on here though? I provide an important service, coffee and good counsel.”

Winters wrote out his name and drew a circle around it, free from the tree. “You’re an outlier, but I do have to admit you’re a good help, Harry.”

“Thanks. Come see me in the shop after, alright? I’ve got some staffing issues of my own. Talbert keeps hitting on the customers and Skinny wouldn’t know a Cappuccino if it punched him in the face.”

Winters agreed, laughing lightly and waving Harry off as he got back to his paperwork.

* * *

 

Lipton closed the restaurant and ushered all his staff to the bar, where they had pulled a couple tables together to make one big meeting space. Other members of staff who wouldn’t have normally worked also arrived, along with the new night manager. Lipton had learned a couple of interesting things about him through overheard gossip among the wait staff.

Christenson had told everyone that he knew some guy who worked at a bar that Speirs used to manage, out in Oakland. Apparently, according to this young man, Speirs was notorious. He was known for being a hard task master and cruel. It was rumoured that he had actually beaten up some guy who threatened a woman at the bar, taking him outside and dealing with him with cold efficiency. He had ties with the mafia and kept a gun in his glove compartment.

Of course, Lipton didn’t really believe that stuff. It was probably complete fiction. It did lend a little layer of apprehension to the meeting, but Lipton resolved to treat the Night Manager like he treated everyone else, with politeness and respect, maybe tampering down his usual friendliness a little bit.

Everyone sat down to the meeting, with Winters greeting them all jovially and detailing the years performance and developments in the Bar. Seated next to him, Lipton noticed a particularly handsome man that he didn’t recognize. He was refined and notably attractive with sweeping brown hair and a strong jaw. He was watching Winters with rapt attention, nodding minutely at the things he was saying but staying entirely silent. Lipton found himself focusing on him instead of the meeting. Their eyes met, and now Lipton was the one under observation from a very intense set of eyes. They were boring into him, tracking over his face and features, assessing. Lipton found himself begin to sweat as he was sized up, resisting the inexplicable urge to pull at his collar and gulp exaggeratedly like some old cartoon character. Something in the others mans eyes softened slightly as Lipton blushed and tried to regain his focus, shuffling notes.

* * *

 

The meeting ended very positively, with Winters explaining the upturn in profits and organization since the new manager and thanking everyone for their hard work in the past weeks. Everyone was cheerful, even Roe cracking a quiet grin as beers were handed out to the staff. Lipton and Joe Toye disassembled the tables and headed over to the bar with everyone. The other man stayed where he was, checking his phone. He had a very intense look about him, a steely glare that never broke into a more casual expression. Now Lipton could see him fully, he could tell he was even more attractive than originally ascertained, dressed in clean black like something from a magazine. And there he was, giving Lipton the eye like he was mentally fixing him up for supper.

Two beers down and Lipton was starting to feel a little on edge. This was mainly due to the heavy weight on his back, the unrelenting glare of the man that was tracking his every movement. Why on earth is he staring like that? _Do I have something on my face?_ He wiped at his mouth self-consciously, making sure he didn’t have a beer foam moustache of some description. He accidentally caught eyes with the man again and he flashed him a quick, slightly terrifying but appealing smile. Jesus Christ, were they flirting? This was new. He’d never been hit on like this before, not by someone so handsome or with such a focused intensity. He wasn’t certain whether to be flattered or scared.

“Hey, Gordon.” He impatiently tapped Smokey on the back with the flat of his hand.

“Yeah Boss?” Toye, Gordon and Christenson were all bundled together, sniggering at jokes. The other wait staff were milling about, all in good spirits. Winters was leaning up near the bar, chatting with Harry Welsh, who had returned from the coffee shop. That kid who was always at the bar had inevitably come back, this time bringing Joe Liebgott from the record store and they were loudly discussing amplifiers whilst Roe watched and pretended not to laugh at the guys’ many quick-fire jokes.

“Who’s that guy?” He gestured subtly towards the man, who was now seated away from everyone, scrolling on his phone like he hadn’t a care in the world. Lipton seldom drank, and after his small indulgence he was feeling a bit looser-lipped. “He keeps staring. I think I’m gonna ask for his number.”

Smokey looked taken aback. “What? No. Lip! That’s Ron Speirs. You know, the new night manager. The sociopathic one?”

Ah. That explained a few things. Such as his very presence, the fact that everyone seemed to be avoiding him and the way he didn’t seem to give a shit.

Lipton understood now. This man, Speirs, had a more frightening presence than both of the bouncers combined, even when Johnny was doing his meanest death glare and Bull was puffing away on his cigar with menace. He probably made an excellent and efficient night manager. Hopefully this meant Roe wouldn’t have to break up any more fights. He was capable, sure, who knew what kind of stuff went on in the backwoods bayou, but it wasn’t really his job and Lipton could tell it was weighing on him. It all made sense.

What Lipton didn’t understand was what Speirs wanted with him.

* * *

 

As everyone was getting their coats and making their way home, he got an answer.

He was closing up the office when he heard a light rap on the open door. Speirs was leaning up against the doorway, looking every inch a catalogue model if it weren’t for that unnerving stare.

“I don’t think we’ve been introduced.” Lipton gave him a small smile and stepped forward to shake hands.

“We haven’t. I’m Carwood Lipton, day manager of The Battalion.”

“Yes, I know. Winters speaks very highly of you. You’ve been doing a great job keeping everything together here. The staff all really like you and you’ve pretty much saved the bar from going to hell.” What was Lipton supposed to say in the face of such unsolicited high praise? To add to his discomfort, Speirs was smiling now and it took him from very attractive to almost unbearably good looking. Lipton felt exceedingly flustered, struggling to maintain a calm exterior.

“I don’t think. Uh. Thank you?”

Speirs smiled again, baring his teeth. He took Lipton’s hand and shook it firmly. _Maybe this was what all that strange behavior was all about?_ Lipton wondered. How foolish of him to think he was hitting on him! Lipton almost laughed at himself and felt a slight sense of relief. That kind of thing would be a real diversion from his comfortable normality. He was so distracted by this train of thought that he didn’t notice that Ron had let go of his hand was now tentatively touching his waist, just grazing him with his fingertips.

That was hard to ignore. Or to misinterpret. Turns out Lipton’s first impressions weren’t so off after all.

“No problem.” That smile seemed predatory now. Reluctantly withdrawing his hand, Ron sauntered away, completely oblivious to the way Lipton had practically seized up in shock. As if remembering something, he turned around and shot Lipton another grin.

“I hope we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

With that final nail in the coffin of Lipton’s self-preservation, he left. _This,_ thought a resigned Lipton, _is going to make life very difficult indeed._

He didn’t really mind.

**Author's Note:**

> Thought it would be fun to focus on the bar in this chapter! I could happily spend all my life in a pub. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
